Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition

by Stephen Teo

Overview

This updated edition is a comprehensive, fully-researched account of the historical and contemporary development of the traditional martial arts genre in the Chinese cinema known as wuxia (literal translation: martial chivalry) - a genre which audiences around the world became familiar with through the phenomenal 'crossover' hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). The book unveils rich layers of the wuxia tradition as it developed in the early Shanghai cinema in the late 1920s, and from the 1950s onwards, in the Hong Kong and Taiwan film industries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474403863
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	11/13/2015
Series:	Traditions in World Cinema
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Stephen Teo is currently associate professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and a senior research associate of the RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions (British Film Institute, 1997), Wong Kar-wai (BFI, 2005), King Hu's A Touch of Zen (Hong Kong University Press, 2006), and Director in Action: Johnnie To and the Hong Kong Action Film (Hong Kong University Press, 2007).

Table of Contents

Part I: History and Development
1. Introduction
2. Wuxia from Literature to Cinema
3. Reactions against the Wuxia Genre
4. The Wuxia Genre Shifts Ground
5. The Rise of Kung Fu, from Wong Fei-hung to Bruce Lee

Part II: The New School and Beyond
6. The Rise of New School Wuxia
7. The Wuxia Films of King Hu
8. A Touch of Zen and the Moral Dilemma of the Female Knight-Errant
9. Wuxia after A Touch of Zen
10. Wuxia between Nationalism and Transnationalism

Glossary
Filmography
Works Cited

Editorial Reviews

This book is a welcome addition to the flourishing literature on Chinese martial arts cinema.

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television - Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley

An unprecedented English language resource for those interested in the history of the genre, particularly its roots in literature and the lost films that can only be researched obliquely through reviews and articles written by people who have seen them. I'd recommend it to those who are willing to read an academic, scholarly text, and even to those who aren't interested in scholarly reading but wish to know more about this unappreciated and misunderstood genre of film... an excellent resource for the history of the genre, as well as topical and retroactive critical appraisal. Exhaustively researched, filled with anecdotal information about the earliest Shanghai produced films and their reception by audiences and the intelligentsia.

Golden Pigsy